<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>happy birthday, dean by carmela616</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29075874">happy birthday, dean</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmela616/pseuds/carmela616'>carmela616</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Religion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:08:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,284</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29075874</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmela616/pseuds/carmela616</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>we've all seen john's journal entry about dean's 17th birthday, but here's the full story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; John Winchester, Lee Webb/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>happy birthday, dean</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean woke in the early hours of the morning, groggy as ever, to the kicking of his brother. It had been another shitty night in another shitty motel, and the mattress crunched and crinkled under Dean's weight as he shifted, trying futilely to make himself more comfortable. He glanced over at Sammy, who was still asleep, his kicking likely fueled by the nightmares that never ceased to chase the Winchesters.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">For any other kid, today would be special. Today would mean birthday cake, friends, presents. But Dean knew he was different. He had a duty, a job. Saving people, hunting things. Keeping Sammy and the rest of the world safe.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Stretching his legs out quietly, Dean tried not to wake his brother. After a long drive out to Wyoming, all of them were tired from the constant growl of the engine and bumps of the roads. John was still out cold, as he always was after one too many fingers of whiskey the night before.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean slipped out from under the covers and pulled on his boots. Glancing once at John, he scribbled a note on the motel stationary, and stopped only to grab the room key and some coins from the nightstand as he made his way out the door.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He was no stranger to these morning walks, the damp morning breeze greeted him once again like a familiar blanket, filling his lungs with dewy breath and caressing his hair like a lover. He scuffed his shoes along the pavement, thinking about how John would scold him for doing so, reminding him that it would wear out the soles. He did it anyway, or maybe just to spite the man. He turned and lifted his eyes, checking to see if the curtains had drawn in room 23 and if a pair of hardened eyes gazed upon him, more out of instinct than anything else. But he was still safe, still free.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean wandered towards the vending machine, slipped nickels and dimes in until the whir of machinery brought him his reward. A packaged Pop Tart, stale and crumbly, but Dean enjoyed it nonetheless, a physical and flavorful assertion of his own freedom, no matter how small.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As he sat on the parking lot curb, his eyes were involuntarily drawn to the pay phone hung right outside reception. It would be so easy, so easy to call Lee and talk. Talk about that night, about how he desperately wished it could've gone differently. John wasn't supposed to have gotten back until the next day. He was meant to be away, meant to not know.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But he did. Dean, hastily pulling his shirt down in pure fear and silence. Lee slipping out the door to let the Winchesters work it out, as they always somehow seemed to do.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What followed was the most tense ride in the Impala in Dean's life. It was completely silent, tears welling in his eyes, staring at the side of the road passing by, just praying for a void to miraculously appear in the ground beneath and swallow him whole.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">A merciful death never came. But John's voice, raised above the rumble of the engine, did. "You're supposed to be </span> <em><span class="s2">hunting</span></em> <span class="s1"> the dirty and the unnatural, not becoming them." A knot had formed in Dean's throat, rending him incapable of responding. What do you even say to that? To be told by your own father that the way you love is inhuman.</span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You internalize all of it, apparently. Since then, Dean had not spoken one word of it to another soul. Not to John, not to Sam, and certainly not to Lee.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He had simply bottled it up, pretended it never happened. Pushing things down was Dean's speciality, he had come to learn.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean finished his Pop Tart and went back to the hotel room, where he lay silently in bed, faking sleep until it took him once again.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"C'mon boys. Rise and shine."</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean waited for the telltale rustling from the other half of the bed as his cue to play the part of someone waking from a night full of slumber. "So, uh, what are we hunting?" Dean asked, swinging his legs out from under the cover.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">"Question is, what are </span> <em> <span class="s2">you</span> </em> <span class="s1"> hunting. It's your seventeenth birthday, I think you're about old enough to take on a hunt alone."</span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean's head buzzed. A solo hunt? He had done his fair share of taking the lead, with John as just backup, but had never gone hunting by himself before.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Undeterred by Dean's silence, John continued on. "Two nuns. Their ghosts haunt a church on the local reservation. I figure there's some object keeping them there, a Bible, a rosary, whatnot."</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Curious for the full story, but knowing asking further questions was always a gamble with John, Dean kept his silence.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">John and Sam got him ready for the day: packing salt into shotgun shells, gathering matches, and mapping out the directions to the church.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">John drove him to the church, unwilling to let Dean take the Impala out on his own. A backpack full of hunter's materials and a head full of anxious doubts, Dean stepped inside. John had promised that the church would be empty at midday, and he had been right. Dean stepped forward, skin expectantly tingling, ready for the slightest temperature drop. But nothing came. He began to search the rooms, looking for anything old and nun-y. He had no clue what to look for, but figured when he found the right thing, the ghosts would appear. Quite literally a game of hot or cold.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As he rummaged through stacks of bibles and hymn books, he cursed John in his head. He had sent him out to do the boring work without any clue in the world as to what kind of object he was looking for. Sure, the man probably wanted him to learn how to hunt by himself, but-</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And then he felt it. A colder pretense swept over the room, bringing an unmistakable chill to Dean's bones. With one hand, he rummaged through his backpack for the salt-loaded shotguns. With the other, he continued to push aside stacks of books.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As his eyes scoured the room, glancing quickly down to the books and back up to search again, he felt his fingertips graze metal.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A necklace. Upon closer inspection, a locket. Still no sign of any ghosts forming, Dean pried it open. Inside, photos of the two nuns, presumably the ones he was meant to hunt.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As he dug through his backpack for the salt, lighter fluid, and matches, the beam of his flashlight began to quaver.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A flickering, crackling noise filled the air, and Dean's movements became more rushed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ghosts appear.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Though they were waveringly translucent, Dean could still make out two distinct figures, holding hands, each with a noose around their neck.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Dean felt his heart rate rise further, and glanced quickly from the locket (with a heart engraved on the back, he realized) to the two figures before him.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then it hit him. They had been in love. Whether someone in the church had killed them for their love, or they had done it themselves, that was the cause of their death and their subsequent haunting. This wasn't a hunt for Dean to learn how to work solo. This was a hunt to teach Dean a lesson.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He knew what he had to do.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Grab the salt, douse the necklace in lighter fluid, strike the match, defend yourself with the shotgun. Get it done with quickly. Make John proud. Act like this was just another hunt.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And so he did.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i need to stop vent writing angst and religion and shitty homophobic dads and go to therapy BUT I DON'T WANT TO</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>